Ice-tank for refrigerator-cars.



'Nn. 704,!97. Patented July 8, I902. T. B. KIRBY.

ICE TANK FOR REFRIGERATOR CARS.

(Application filed Oct. 22, 1897.) (No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet l.

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No. 704,197. Patented July 8, I902. T. B. KIRBY.

ICE TANK FUR REFRIGERATOR CARS.

(Application filed Oct. 22, 1897.

,(No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

No. 704,197. Patented July 8, I902. T. B. KIBBY.

ICE TANK FOR REFRIGERATOR CARS.

(Application filed on. 22, 1897.) (No Model.) 3 Sheets8heet 3.

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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

THOMAS B. KIRBY, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR TO ARMOUR & COM- PANY,OOPARTNERSIIIP OF PHILIP D. ARMOUR, JONATHAN O. ARMOUR, AND PHILIP D.ARMOUR, JR., OFGI-IIOAGO, ILLINOIS.

ICE-TANK FOR REFRIGERATOR-CARS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 704,197, dated July 8,1902.

Application filed October 22, 1897.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, THOMAS B. KIRBY, of the city of Chicago, county ofCook, and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and usefulImprovements in Ice-Tanks for Refrigerator-Oars, of which the followingis a specification.

This invention relates to ice-tanks for refrigerator-cars, and has forits principal ob- IO ject to provide a construction whereby suchice-tanks may be adapted to carry varying amounts of ice in differentportions of the journey and at different seasons of the year, or, inother words, whereby the cubical capacity of the portion of the tankcontaining the ice may be varied, this variation being accomplished byincreasing or decreasing the distance of the floor of the tank from thetop thereof, so as to always carry the ice near the so top of the tankin order to efiect adequate refrigeration of the entire interior of thecar whatever the amount of ice carried may be.

To this and other minor ends myinvention consists in certain novelfeatures and details 5 of construction, which will be hereinafterdescribed, and then particularly pointed out in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a perspective view of one endof a refrigerge ator-car having my improvements applied thereto, the endof the car and ice-tank being removed and the movable floor being shownpartly in its upper and partly in its lower position. Fig. 2 is a viewof the same 3 5 in end elevation, the movable floor being shown in itslower position. Fig. 3 is a vertical sectional view transversely throughthe ice-tank.

In the said drawings, 10 represents a refrigo orator-car, which may beof the .usual construction, provided with an ice-tank extend ing acrossthe car transversely at each of its ends and having the usual ice-holesin the car-roof, provided with covers or closures 11.

Within each ice-tank I provide at two or more distances or points abovethe bottom of the tank two or more groups or sets of fixed sup ports,and in the present instance I have shown these supports as composed ofbeams 5o 12, extending transversely of the car and lonplurality of slats38, running longitudinally Serial No. 656,087. (No model.)

gitudinally of the ice-box immediately adjacent to the front and rearwalls of said box. The lower beams are preferably metallic I- beamssupported upon cast-metal brackets 18, resting on the car-floor 14 andsecured, if desired, to the walls of the tank, while the upper pair ofbeams are preferably of angleiron and supported in the manner indicatedby bolting them directly to the sides of the ice-tank. I have shown thelower pair of beams as connected by bolts 15, passing through tubularstays 15.

16 indicates the movable floor,which is preferably constructed inindependently-movable sections and which in the present instance I haveshown as composed of four such sections 16, the number being deemeddesirable for the reason that the sections are thereby made of such asize and weight that they may be conveniently handled in the mannerhereinafter described. A greater or less number of sections may,however, be employed, or the movable-floor maybe made in a single piece.I have shown the sections as composed of a of the car, spaced-apart asuitable distance by interposed blocks 39 at the ends of the slats andconnected by bolts 40, running through the slats and blocks at each endof each section. This construction is particularly adapted for use inconnection with supports running transversely of the car, as in theconstruction shown; but it may obviously be modified, and any suitableform of floor may be substituted for that shown. To facilitate handlingof the floor, I provide the same or each section thereof with suitablerings or other hand-grasps 17,and I prefer to provide each section withsuch a ring at both its front and its rear end, as shown.

The ice-tank is provided in the usual manner with a warm-air inlet 18,communicating with the interior of the car at its upper end and with acold-air outlet 19, establishing a similar communication with theinterior of 5 the car at its lower end. This constructionis obtained bymeans of a fixed partition 41, which extends transversely of the carnear each end thereof and forms the inner transverse wall of theice-box, said partition tertoo minatingshort of the roof and floor ofthe car,

and thereby providing .the inlet and outlet passages for the air. Thefloor of the tank is provided with the usual drip-tray 20 to catch thewater as it falls from the melting ice. This drip-tray is provided withone or more screen-covered waste-outlets 22, two being shown in thepresent instance, one'near each end of the tank. Inasmuch as thespecific form and construction of these outlets coustitutes no part ofmypresent invention, the same need not be more particularly described.

The apparatus thus described is adapted to be employed in the followingmanner: When for any reason it is desired to employ only a comparativelysmall quantity of ice in the tank, the movable floor 16 thereof isplaced and rests upon the upper support 12 in the tank, as shown indotted lines in Fig. 2, and the space in said tank above said floor maybe filled with ice, which by reason of its elevated position in the tankwill effectually cool the interior of the car both with respect to itsupper as well as to its lower portion. WVhen, on the other hand, it isdesired to increase the amount of ice carried in the tank, the floor 16or the sections thereof may be tilted or caused to assume a vertical orapproximately vertical position, and thereby be lowered or passed downbetween the upper supports and caused to rest upon the lower supports inthe manner shown in full lines in Fig. 2 of the drawings, therebyincreasing the capacity of the tank in an obvious manner. It frequentlyoccurs in the use of such cars that the tanks are partly filled with iceat one point of the journey and subsequently entirely filled at someother point, Where ice is more accessible or cheaper. The sectionalconstruction of the movable floor which I have described is particularlyadapted for use under these circumstances, since in such a case, thetank being first loaded when the floor is resting on the upper supports,when it is desired to entirely fill the tank the ice therein may bemoved laterally, so as to rest on that section or those sections at oneside of the car--as, forin stance, those sections shown resting uponthe upper supports in Fig. 1 of the drawings. The remaining section orsections having thus been cleared of ice may be tilted and lowered torest upon the lower supports in the manner already described and asshown in Fig. 1 of the drawings, when the ice from the upper section orsections may be transferred to the lower section or sections and thesection or sections thus freed of ice lowered to the lower supports,whereupon the entire tank may be filled with ice, the transfer of themovable floor from the upper to the lower supports being thus efiectedwithout removing the ice from the tank and without wasting any portionthereof.

I prefer to make the movable floor in four sections, for the reason thatthe sections are thereby constituted of such dimensions and weight thatthey may be readily handled in the operation of transferring the floorfrom one position to another; but it is obvious that this feature of myinvention will be embodied in a floor of any number of sections.

By reason of the construction which I have described I am enabled todispense with the use of a supplementary floor, such as heretofore hasbeen employed for the purpose of diminishing the cubical capacity of theicetank, and am thereby enabled to obviate the first cost of such afloor and the expense of hauling the same, while at the same time thespace in the ice-tank which would otherwise be occupied by suchsupplementary floor may be employed for the purpose for which it ischiefly desirable to use itto wit, the storage of ice.

I prefer to employ supports extending transversely of the car in themanner indicated in the construction shown in the draw ings; but it isobvious that these supports may be otherwise arranged. It is alsoobvious that although I have shown only two sets or groups of supports,whereby the mov able bottom may be adjusted to two difierent positionsonly, a greater number of sets or groups of supports may be employed, soasto give a greater range of adjustment to the movable bottom. Moreover,although I have employed the phrase sets or groups as ap-' plied to thesupports of the movable bottom it is obvious that these elements may bemade in a single piece, thereby constituting a single support for eachdiiferent position of the movable bottom.

While the floor-sections are detached from and freely movable withrespect to the icetank and supports for the purpose of permitting themto be shifted from one position to another, it is in practice founddesirable to provide means for locking the sections of the floor inposition to prevent unauthorized access to the interior of the car. Forinstance, it is found that when the ice-tank is empty and the car isbeing used as a ventilated car,- as is frequently the case, by openingor par-' tially opening the covers or closures 11 of the'ice-holesaccess is had to the interior of the tank through these holes, and oneor more of the floor-sections being lifted up the interior of the car isreached through the cold-air outlet 19 and the contents thereofpartially or wholly removed. In order to prevent this, Iprovidelocking-rods 31,hinged at 32 to the ice-tank and having their inner ends33 bent at a right angle and adapted to pass downward between two of thefloor-sections or between the slats thereof and provided with a slot oraperture 34. A lockingpin 35 is adapted to pass through the apertures34, said pin passing underneath a transverse locking-bar 36, to whichthe pin 35 may be connected by a chain 37 in order to prevent itsbecoming mislaid or lost. When it is desired to lock the floor-sectionsin position, the rods 31 are swung down into the polid sition shown inFig. 2 and there secured by passing the locking-pin through theapertures thereof below the locking-bar 36. This can be accomplishedfrom the interior of the car by reaching through the opening 19, andwhen the floor-sections are thus secured in position they cannot belifted up for the purpose of gaining access to the interior of the car,nor is their locking mechanism accessible from the ice-tank. When not inuse, the locking-rods 31 may be swung up against the sides of the tank,as shown at the right of Fig. 1.

I claim 1. In a refrigerator-oar, the combination, with an ice-tank, ofa lower support consisting of I-beams extending transversely of the carand suitably connected, and brackets supporting said beams, and othersupports 10- cated above the lower supports and consisting of angle-barssecured to the sides of the tank, and a movable floor adapted to rest oneither of said supports and to be tilted to pass between the same,substantially as described.

2. In a refrigerator-car, the combination,

